Saint-John Perse

Died in 1975

Saint-John Perse, whose name was Alexis Leger, was born on 31 May 1887 in Pointe-à-Pitre, into a family that owned a coffee plantation and a sugar estate in Guadeloupe. His family then settled in Pau, and he studied law in Bordeaux. Having entered the diplomatic service in 1914, he was posted to Peking, headed Aristide Briand's private office, then became secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Having left for the United States in 1940 and been stripped of his nationality by Vichy, he was an adviser at the Library of Congress. Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960, he died in 1975 on the Giens peninsula.

In the catalogue 1

PoetryEloges and Other PoemsÉlogesSaint-John Perse · 1911Literature